For Your Safety and The Very Likely Marginal Safety of Others

In addition to having to get a new driver’s license and car registration, my new state also has state safety inspections. It’s been a little while since I’ve had to contend with them,, and honestly it’s never been a problem when I have. Until now, anyway.

The Toyota had a problem with the exhaust pipe, which the inspector made a clean $400 off fixing. We could have gotten a second opinion, but we gave them the benefit of the doubt in part because they’re the only inspection station around here and such chores become surprisingly more difficult when you have a baby. And besides, the car is approaching twenty years old. We expect problems to occur, whether by being stuck on the side of a road or held up by the state.

The Forester had a more verifiable problem. Not long after we got it, we got a crack in the windshield which is a frequent occurrence in the wide open west. The crack has been growing in fits and starts ever since. Fortunately, though, it doesn’t affect visibility unless you count my ability to clearly see my front hood. The previous state that I lived in which required safety inspections only cared if it was in the line of sight, but my new state apparently sees (haha, no pun intended) it differently.

This is not, strictly speaking, a matter of personal freedom. There are certainly negative externalities when it comes to unsafe cars on the road. If my visibility were obstructed, it would represent a hazard first and foremost to myself, but also to others. Acknowledged.

It reminded me of James K’s post on the price of safety. Three-hundred seventy comments, but alas, nothing gets resolved. Within the conversation, Mr. Blue actually comments about auto inspections being an example of safety regulations unduly impacting the poor (coincidentally enough, relating back to when he failed inspection for a cracked windshield). He backs off it a bit as not being the best example, but I think it’s a great point. Especially in light of what I was tagged for.

Replacing the windshield was no real burden on my part. It was less than the exhaust repair. But it’s a pretty clear case of something where the danger to myself – much less others – was positively minimal. While it’s possible to imagine the crack turning into a shatter and zero visibility, the likelihood of such is very slim. I’d have to get into an accident of sufficient seriousness that it would do a number on the windshield, but not of sufficient seriousness that the windshield would bust anyway. And the odds get longer when you’re talking about it affecting someone other than myself and passengers in my car. The accident would have to occur while I am mobile at such a speed that I cannot stop. While $250 isn’t much for me, it is a significant burden for some people. All for access to the thing they need to make money to do things like repair cars with actual problems.

A fair number of accidents on the road may indeed be attributable to car malfunction of one sort or another, and the number would presumably accumulate over a large enough span, but that shouldn’t be the question. The question should be the extent to which an annual (or less) check of certain things reduces them to any significant degree. And whether each thing we are forcing people to address, in itself, would save lives. How many lives, and at what cost?

It’s worth noting that my stance here is not some right-field hyperlibertarian might-as-well-move-to-Somalia one. Officials in no less than Washington DC came to the same conclusion and chose to junk inspections altogether:

The District of Columbia recently decided that its periodic motor vehicle safety inspections were flab. Performed at a D.C. facility along with emissions tests, the safety checks were junked for an annual savings of about $400,000. In justifying the cut, the D.C. Council cited a lack of data proving periodic safety inspections save lives.

Safety advocates, who’ve worked to expand periodic safety inspections beyond the 19 states that still require them, worry that others will decide to rethink the cost. They acknowledge that the way crashes are reported makes good data hard to come by, but argue that the current economy makes it even more important to check that drivers are maintaining their vehicles.

“Safety inspections are particularly needed in hard economic times, because when you’re on a tight budget, you tend to skip the badly needed maintenance,” says Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Automotive Safety advocacy group.

Like a broken windshield that obscures my view of the front hood! More seriously, the only danger is that a crack is more likely to explode into something else in the event of a major accident. That’s not nothing, but the aggregate costs of these checks are enormous. To the extent that there are externalities to be addressed, there is already a venue to do so: insurance companies. An optional inspection for a cut on your insurance rate could price out the total costs quite easily. They’d certainly have an incentive to know how much that would save in lives and property damage.

Now, you might say “Ah-ha! Insurance companies favor inspections!” I don’t know that this is true, but since people always talk freely about what “insurance companies want” and I have no conclusive evidence to the contrary, let’s assume that it is. Even if it is, though, why shouldn’t they? Even if it does absolutely no good, it doesn’t cost them a dime. Let them put their money where their mouth is, if this is important. They don’t even have to wait for a state to end auto inspections. Most states don’t presently have them. If it’s not worth their effort to make this distinction, I don’t see why it’s worth ours.

42 Responses

I can’t remember ever doing a safety inspection. I’m fine with mandatory emissions testing if that is needed though. The only problem i’d see with optional safety testing to get a lower insurance premium is that people who don’t think their cars will pass inspection won’t do it. If its optional then those with complete junkers will opt to pay a bit more insurance although i’d guess they already have the minimum insurance allowed so they wouldn’t actually be saving much but they would get to drive their “death trap” all over the place. If someone is driving a car with a serious safety issue then they are already choosing to accept a risk over paying out some money.

I think if safety is an issue then it shouldn’t be optional. If its just about saving money, then optional is fine.Report

If something represents an actual hazard, I agree that private-side is insufficient. The reason I mention that insurance companies could be doing this and are not doing this is because, if it really prevented accidents and it were demonstrated to their satisfaction, they would likely be doing it. Especially if you are taking on insurance for yourself and passengers. That they aren’t suggests, to me, that the safety benefits are dubious in comparison to the costs.Report

I can’t imagine any common mechanical problems that safety checks would find. If someone has bad brakes they have a pretty strong incentive on their own to get them fixed. I would hazard a guess that cars were just a lot crappier 20, 30, 40 years ago so a yearly safety check might be more likely to find something.Report

While clearly the inspections in Queensland approach the standard I understand that is in place in germany, in many places they are much simpler. In Tx (outside areas where emission checks are needed) they check to see that all the lights are working, that the brakes and emergency brakes work, and the horn toots. So in the boonies its about $15. (But if you live in a county where emissions are check you can’t take your car to the boonies for inspection) Note in Tx if you buy a new car you get a 1 time 2 year inspection certificate, because they don’t expect these sorts of problems in a new car)Report

Except that most people with older cars are not making car payments. Might need to redo that $6000 a year figure. I just got a new car. Before that I hadn’t had a car payment in 10 years. All of my cars had been payed off long ago.Report

Tires, absolutely. One thing I’m pleased to see coming along is tire pressure gauges in the displays. Proper tire inflation gives you better fuel mileage, too. I can’t be bothered to look it up just now, but I’d bet catastrophic tire failure is a leading cause of death and injury.Report

I do not know this for fact, but I would guess that one of the major contributors to harm stems from tires.

Living in Maine, where rust is a big problem, I also frequently see unibody cars that look like they’re about to snap in two. While I doubt this would actually happen driving down the road, were one of these rusty cars to get in an accident, the passengers would be at some seriously increased risk; these cars have no frame; the body is the frame.

As someone who also has issues with oncoming headlights, I find the neon-purple lights some vehicles have a safety problem, they should not be allowed, and headlights that aren’t aimed properly a problem. Sometimes, safety isn’t about your car, it’s about what your car does to the people in other cars.

I pretty much don’t have a problem with basic safety inspections. Because driving down the road in several-thousand pounds of metal and plastic is the single most dangerous thing I do. I have many friends who are first responders, and I think of them in this picture, too. It’s pretty difficult to ask them to risk exploding an air bag (and themselves) trying to cut you out of a car; that they might need to do this because you wanted to save a few bucks and didn’t replace your tires when they needed it is troublesome.

Because it’s not all about you and your car. You share the road with others. And others clean up after our mistakes on the road.Report

I agree the hyper bright lights some people are an issue. Especially on dark roads those things can be blinding and my night vision is fine. I know they really bug my wife whose night vision isn’t all that great.Report

I hate those lights with a passion. I remember seeing an ad on TV for headlights and lookie how bright they are. I didn’t want one of those lights. I wanted to throw a rock threw the windshield of the person selling them.

It’s a little better for me personally now that I drive something higher off the ground, but the rage from the Ford Escort days is still there.Report

Because it’s not all about you and your car. You share the road with others. And others clean up after our mistakes on the road.

Acknowledged. However, we should be able to demonstrate the costs of lack-of-inspection and right now we can’t really find any (for drivers and passengers, much less others). The safety benefits are theoretical, but the costs are real and are not evenly distributed.

I support the notion that people should be driving in cars that have working breaks, tail lights, and so on. I even support people with busted tail lights getting pulled over. But even apart from basic safety concerns, inspections are a separate thing altogether. As a mechanism for discerning which cars are road-safe and which ones are not, it seems to me like a lot of cost for not a lot of benefit.

Having moved from a state without inspections to one that has inspections, I feel approximately 0% safer on the road for it. For which is a minimum of $30 and fees, plus a couple hours out of my life.Report

My wife’s old car got nicked in the tail light, which resulted in a slight displacement that blew out the tail light every time it rained. It was definitely our responsibility to get the tail light fixed every time until we figured out how to permanently fix it (clear duct tape!).

It was cops, not a state safety inspector, who brought it to our attention.Report

@will-truman, while I can’t speak to your specific situation (meaning did the safety inspection fail to notice the problem), I strongly disagree.

When I was reporting, I ended up spending a lot of time in court rooms; in some, the day was pissed away listening to people try to get out of fines from the cops pointing these things out. These people generally had sketchy vehicles because they were poor; they couldn’t afford to fix things, and all the cops did was add the layer of fine and increased insurance costs, setting them back even more.

An honest inspection that requires these repairs, without the additional costs of fines and insurance, is far better.Report

Zic, in some places you can actually get out of the ticket simply by resolving the problem by the time of the court date. That may be a better approach. It still costs you an afternoon, but so can inspections. Alternately, you can start by just giving people a warning. Have the warning recorded and if they get caught again then they get a ticket. (As an aside, I think we need a formal warning and warning-tracking system, regardless of what we do with this. The cop who lets some speedy-kid off with a warning should know that the last three cops who pulled him over did the same.)

I am honestly indifferent as to whether or not people caught with busted tail lights should get a ticket or a warning. I was glad not to have to pay a fine on the tail light (the inconvenience and stress of getting pulled over was punishment enough) but if we have to give people tickets to get their attention, I am okay with that too.

Both strike me as being better than an inspection regime, if that’s what we’re concerned about. If someone’s car fails inspection, that means that they either have to get it repaired right away, which they may not have the money to do, or they keep driving at the risk of getting a ticket that I would expect to be more severe than the one they might get for the busted tail light.Report

Here in California if you got your shit together in time, it used to be you got out of paying the fine. Now, you still do, but there’s a $25 fix it ticket fee that you still have to pay.

Having just spent a bit of time without a headlight following an accident (needed to pay for body work before a new headlight could be installed), I noticed something interesting:

Here where I live in the poor suburb, I was never pulled over for the busted headlight. In the college town down the hill, I was pulled over three times in the same week. I think it’s down to the town’s demographics. A guy up here has a headlight out, the cops think “this guy probably can’t afford to get that fixed”, whereas the folks down by the college think “This guy’s rich parents can pay whatever ticket I write”.Report

An actually vehicle safety inspection is basically lights, horn, tires, brakes, windshield. In all cases, what is being looked for is items that affect the driver’s ability to safely operate (brakes work, windshield is clear in the driver’s field of view, etc.), and others ability to discern the presence & intentions of the driver (lights, signals, horn).

A crack along the bottom of the windshield is worth a recommendation to get that fixed. A big starred crack in front of the driver is something that needs fixing now. Sadly, inspection schemes rarely make this distinction, defaulting instead to the idea (not wholly incorrect), that if they don’t demand it get fixed, it won’t & it’ll get worse. No exceptions for the times that it isn’t fixed because it’s the choice between a new windshield & food for the month.Report

Even if these are all things that affect a driver’s ability to safely operate a vehicle, it still should be demonstrated than an inspection is going to find these problems with sufficient frequency to justify the time and expense.

You live in a state without safety inspections. How unsafe do you feel on the road because your state doesn’t have them? How much safer would you feel if you were in a state that did?Report

Does it matter how unsafe he feels? Shouldn’t we instead determine the actual difference in aggregate safety?

Statistics exist for a reason — and problems like the Monty Hall problem are famous for a reason — and that’s because human gut instincts don’t always work so well when it comes to probability and large numbers.

Of course, actually determining cost effectiveness and safety increases would require studies and government spending. (And of course, the willingness to accept tradeoffs like ‘Do we want to allow leeway to cracked windshields? If so, is it placement, size, both? Or do we just want a simple room that doesn’t allow people to wiggle free of putting it off too long? Err on one side or the other?”)Report

It has been studied. Results vary, but nothing to give us a firm idea that they are remarkably effective. The NHTSA said the results on life and property were inconclusive. A result from Pennsylvania showed positive results (lives saved), others showed no effect. A lot of it is going to depend on methodology. In the absence of clear data, it’s going to rely on what we think and what we feel about it.

I’d also say that there is significant incentive for insurance companies to investigate the matter. This sort of thing is right up the IIHS’s alley.Report

I worry much more about the person behind the wheel than I do about the mechanical integrity of the vehicle.

Actually, when I see a person with a cracked windshield, or burned out lights, or noisy brakes, etc., I increase my distance from them. I go with the default assumption that a person who is willing to let such things slide may have other automobile related defects as well, such as being a crap driver. Not all signaling on the road is done with brake & turn signal lights.

Keeping my distance hurts no one, improves my reaction time, & the other driver knows nothing of my snap opinion of them, so they can’t be offended much.Report

@mad-rocket-scientist makes a great point. It greatly concerns me that once someone passes a fairly easy test, usually in their late teens, they are granted a license for life. I remember when I took my driving test, I was relieved at how relatively easy it was (in NJ at the time, you didn’t even go out on a real road; the entire test was performed without any other vehicles moving around you). However, when I thought more about it, I realized it meant there were likely a lot of horrible drivers out there. Yikes.

And at the risk of stereotyping and/or being prejudicial, most people’s skills deteriorate over time once they reach advance ages. Having people take a driving test every 10 years through age 50 or 60 and every 5 or 3 years after that seems wise.Report

First off, if you’re wanting to be “thrown clear” you’re an idiot and we can only hope some of your organs survive for someone who can use them. I had an ER friend who said that at least people who didn’t wear seat belts rarely required medical care, on account of being dead, but were often hard to find. One was 20 feet up a tree.

Mostly, however, a seat belt is an awesome little device that keeps you in your seat so you can work the controls of your vehicle.

I’m all for seat belt laws. Used to be iffy on them, but the longer I’ve been driving the more I’m pro-seat belt, because I know the morons I share the road with and they need ALL the help they can get not to kill me.

Speaking of safety: Ever had the dubious pleasure of encountering the folks who are angry they’re not allowed to drive drunk? It’s like the Men’s Rights movement, only for drunk drivers. Or wannabe drunk drivers. Their arguments are basically lifted wholesale from libertarian and objectivist sources, cleansed of any ideological rigor, and thrown willy-nilly into the fray.

I honestly have no problem with seat belt laws on a strictly nanny-basis (at least, giving people a ticket for not wearing them). It’s one of those issues where I am happy to say “Oh, wait, I’m not a Libertarian, so I can support seat belt laws on purely nanny grounds.”

Ever had the dubious pleasure of encountering the folks who are angry they’re not allowed to drive drunk?

More seriously, I’ve gotten pushback on the subject a couple of times. Basically arguing that drunk driving shouldn’t be illegal in and of itself because millions and millions of people do it all the time without adverse consequences and that we should instead focus on the people who actually have accidents while drunk behind the wheel.

It actually has some logic behind it. But that’s certainly much farther down the trail than I am willing to do. I do think that some of our laws have gone too far, though, and support some reforms. So anyone looking to tag me as a society-hating anarchist can hang their hat on that!Report

@morat20 Yes, you are right, I forgot seat belts, for the very reasons you mentioned, in addition to keeping everyone else in the car in place in a collision. When I had the drunk hit me head some years back, I was very glad everyone was wearing seat belts. I’d hate to think of what would have happened had my sister in law seated behind me not been wearing hers. Not only would she have likely been killed, but her mass hitting my seat back would have done me no favors.

Yeah, being an engineer made me a fan of seat belts. Nothing drives home the gruesome reality like being able to do the math.

Oh, with regard to drunk drivers, as much as I loathe them, I worry that we’ve gone too far in our public campaign against them, much as we have with drugs. I also have a very hard time squaring up the public outrage with the seemingly lax punishments for repeat offenders. Something is very off with the whole state of affairs.Report

Regarding the exhaust, it’s not unlikely that it’s pretty rusted out after 20 years. I was once driving a borrowed car on the interstate when the exhaust pipe fell off. Wasn’t a big deal, but I can see how it might have been had things gone a little differently.Report

That’s most likely the case. They said what they basically did was got a smaller pipe and inserted it into the larger pipe. Which suggests to me that the larger pipe probably had holes or something in it.Report

It seems to me the question is less to inspect or not to inspect, but what to inspect. There is probably a frequency and form of inspection which does provide positive value. I don’t think zero inspections are appropriate because cars are highly complex machines that can also be highly dangerous. The vast majority of people can’t and shouldn’t be trusted to self-police. However, annual inspections that check a number of items unrelated to safety or emissions (which seems an equally acceptable purpose) are also sub-ideal. I had a car fail an inspection once because the button on the emergency brake handle was broken. The break still worked, you just had to jimmy it a little bit. But, it failed nonetheless. And this was in a state where the inspections were done by the government, so this wasn’t just some unscrupulous mechanic trying to milk me. A properly functioning emergency brake button (on an automatic car) is apparently necessary for safety.Report

Kazzy, well I think that there are two questions here. One, whether to inspect, and two, what we should inspect. The mere act of inspection represents not-insignificant cost in time and money in the aggregate. So that needs to be justified on its own. If that is justified, then we do get to the question of what should and should not be considered a part of the inspection.

Having lived in states without any sort of inspection, it seems to me that life goes on just fine without them. So I’m not convinced that they’re necessary to begin with.

A lot of people are bringing up tires. That sort of makes sense. If we’re going to have inspections, start there. But first start with the “if”.Report

I think some of the cost could be mitigated by shifting the frequency. Annual is probably too frequently. Especially if tires typically have a life span of multiple years.

However, I agree that we should base our if/what/when/where to something that is data driven.

My hunch is that the answer to “If” is “Yes”. But that is just a hunch.

Regarding disparate impact on the poor, if safety inspections do provide some measure of safety, their abandonment likely shifts the human cost to the poor. People who can afford to perform regular maintenance on their car are likely going to catch things just by chance. But if the only time you bring your car into a mechanic is for an inspection and inspections are done away with, you risk relegating poor people to driving death traps. Which is probably why my hunch is to seek something in the middle. Often enough to prevent real safety issues; rare enough to avoid becoming too financially burdensome.

Also of note: I assumed every state had mandatory inspections. Whoops!Report

When I moved to my current state, I was a minor, but I recall my Dad bitching about the saftey inspection. We had a headlight knob that was missing. It was just the shaft. Had to get that fixed. You could puncture your hand on that. Right…..If you’re that incompetetant, you shouldn’t be driving.

More recently, during an emissions inspection, I had the guy tell me before the test even ran that I failed, “cause you see, the yellow light on the dash means there’s a problem.”. That’s correct too, but the inspector failed to correctly seal the gas cap when he checked for vapors so the car reads an emission failure and turns on the light. I told him he had to reseal the gas cap. It failed again and I reminded him that he had to turn off the ignition switch and retry.

If I’d not gone through this exact same thing earlier, I’d have left, taken the car to the shop, and then had to come back, all because the inspector was 1) lazy 2) careless, 3) stupid, or all the above. Really? I pay for this BS?Report

Regarding the cracked windshield, many states require insurance companies to cover the repair of a cracked windshield. Of course, this sometimes leads to situations where the only way the shops can compete is to offer incentives like free steaks with a repair, since there is no longer any price competition.Report

Religious Institutions. Religious institutions may resume services subject to the following conditions, which apply to churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, interfaith centers, and any other space, including rented space, where religious or faith gatherings are held: 1. Indoor religious gatherings are limited to no more than ten people. 2. Outdoor religious gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. Outdoor services may be held on any outdoor space the religious institution owns, rents, or reserves for use. 3. All attendees at either indoor or outdoor services must maintain appropriate social distancing of six feet and wear face masks or facial coverings at all times. 4. There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service. 5. Collection plates or receptacles may not be passed to or between attendees. 6. There should be no hand shaking or other physical contact between congregants before, during, or after religious services. Attendees shall not congregate with other attendees on the property where religious services are being held before or after services. Family members or those who live in the same household or who attend a service together in the same vehicle may be closer than six feet apart but shall remain at least six feet apart from any other persons or family groups. 7. Singing is permitted, but not recommended. If singing takes place, only the choir or religious leaders may sing. Any person singing without a mask or facial covering must maintain a 12-foot distance from other persons, including religious leaders, other singers, or the congregation. 8. Outdoor or drive-in services may be conducted with attendees remaining in their vehicles. If utilizing parking lots for either holding for religious services or for parking for services held elsewhere on the premises, religious institutions shall ensure there is adequate parking available. 9. All high touch areas, (including benches, chairs, etc.) must be cleaned and decontaminated after every service. 10. Religious institutions are encouraged to follow the guidelines issued by Governor Hogan.

“There shall be no consumption of food or beverage of any kind before, during, or after religious services, including food or beverage that would typically be consumed as part of a religious service,” the order says in a section delineating norms and restrictions on religious services.

The consumption of the consecrated species at Mass, at least by the celebrant, is an integral part of the Eucharistic rite. Rules prohibiting even the celebrating priest from receiving the Eucharist would ban the licit celebration of Mass by any priest.

CNA asked the Howard County public affairs office to comment on how the rule aligns with First Amendment religious freedom and free exercise rights.

Howard County spokesman Scott Peterson told CNA in a statement that "Howard County has not fully implemented Phase 1 of Reopening. We continue to do an incremental rollout based on health and safety guidelines, analysis of data and metrics specific to Howard County and in consultation with our local Health Department."

"With this said," Peterson added, "we continue to get stakeholder feedback in order to fully reopen to Phase 1."

The executive order also limits attendance at indoor worship spaces to 10 people or fewer, limits outdoor services to 250 socially-distanced people wearing masks, forbids the passing of collection plates, and bans handshakes and physical contact between worshippers.

In contrast to the 10-person limit for churches, establishments listed in the order that do not host religious services are permitted to operate at 50% capacity.

In the early days of the Coronavirus epidemic, there were hopes that the disease could be treated with a compound called hydroxychloroquine (HCQ). HCQ is a long-established inexpensive medicine that is widely used to treat malaria. It also has uses for treating rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. There had been some indications that HCQ could treat SARS virus infections by attacking the spike proteins that coronaviruses use to latch onto cells and inject their genetic material. Initial small-scale studies of the drug on COVID-19 patients indicated some positive effect (in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin). President Trump, in March, promoted HCQ as a game-changer and is apparently taking it as a prophylaxis after potentially being exposed by White House staff.

Initial claims of the efficacy of this therapy were a perfect illustration of why we base decisions on scientific studies and not anecdotes. By late March, Twitter was filled with stories of "my cousin's mother's former roommate was on death's door and took this therapy and miraculously recovered". But such stories, even assuming they are true, mean nothing. With COVID-19, we know that seriously ill people reach an inflection point where they either recover or die. If they died while taking the HCQ regimen, we don't hear from them because...they died. And if they recover without taking it, we don't hear from them because...they didn't take it. Our simian brains have evolved to think that correlation is causation. But it isn't. If I sacrificed a goat in every COVID-19 patient's room, some of them would recover just by chance. That doesn't mean we should start a massive holocaust of caprines.

However, even putting aside anecdotes, there were good reasons to believe the HCQ regimen might work. And given the seriousness of this disease and the desperation of those trying to save lives, it's understandable that doctors began using it for critically ill patients and scientists began researching its efficacy.

Why Trump became fixated on it is equally understandable. Trump has been looking for a quick fix to this crisis since Day One. Denial failed. Closing off (some) travel to China failed. A vaccine is months if not years away. So HCQ offered him what he wanted -- a way to fix this problem without the hard work, tough choices and sacrifice of stay-at-home orders, masks, isolation and quarantine. So eager were they to adopt the quick fix, the Administration made plans to distribute millions of doses of this unproven drug in lieu of taking more concrete steps to address the crisis.[efn_note]Although the claim that Trump stands to profit off HCQ sales does not appear to hold much water.[/efn_note]

This is also why certain fringe corners of the internet became fixated on it. There has arisen a subset of the COVID Truthers that I'm calling HCQ Truthers: people who believe that HCQ isn't just something that may save some lives but is, in fact, a miracle cure that it's only being held back so that...well, take your pick. So that Democrats can wreck the economy. So that Bill Gates can inject us with tracking devices. So that we can clear off the Social Security rolls. And this isn't just a US phenomenon nor is it all about Trump. Overseas friends tell me that COVID trutherism in general and HCQ trutherism in particular have arisen all over the Western World.

It's no accident that the HCQ Truthers seem to share a great deal of headspace with the anti-Vaxxers. It fills the same needs

In both cases, the idea was started by flawed studies. The initial studies out of China and France that indicated HCQ worked were heavily criticized for methodological errors (although note that neither claimed it was a miracle cure). Since then, larger studies have shown no effect.

HCQ trutherism offers an explanation for tragedy beyond the random cruelty of nature. Just as anti-vaxxers don't want to believe that sometimes autism just happens, HCQ Truthers don't want to believe that sometimes nature just releases awful epidemics on us. It's more comforting, in some ways, to think that bad happenings are all part of a plan by shadowy forces.

There is, however, another crazy side that doesn't get as much attention because their crazy is a bit more subtle. These are the people who have decided that, since Trump is touting the HCQ treatment, it must not work. It can not work. It can not be allowed to work. There is an undisguised glee when studies show that HCQ does not work and a willingness to blame HCQ shortages on Trump and only Trump.[efn_note]Not to mention the odd fish tank cleaner poisoning that has nothing to do with him.[/efn_note]

In between the two camps are everyone else: scientists, doctors and ordinary folk who just want to know whether this thing works or not, politics and conspiracy theories be damned. Well, last week, we got a big indication that it does not. A massive study out of the Lancet concluded that the HCQ regimen has no measurable positive effect. In fact, death rates were higher for those who took the regimen, likely due to heart arrhythmias induced by the drug.

So is the debate over? Can we move on from HCQ? Not quite.

First of all, the study is a retrospective study, looking backward at nearly 100,000 cases over the last four months. That's a massive sample that allows one to correct for potential confounding factors. But it's not a double-blind trial, so there may be certain biases that can not be avoided. In response to the publication, a group doing a controlled study unblinded some of their data (that is, they let an independent group look up who was getting the actual HCQ and who was getting a placebo). It did not show enough of a safety concern to warrant ending the study.

It's also worth noting that because this is an unproven therapy, it is usually being used on only the sickest patients (the odd President of the United States aside). It's possible earlier use of the drug, when the body is not already at war with itself, could help.

With those caveats in mind, however, this study at least makes it clear that HCQ is not the miracle cure some fringe corners of the internet are pretending it is. And it should make doctors hesitant in giving to people who already have heart issues.

As you can imagine, this has only fed the twin camps of derangement. The truther arguments tend to fall into the usual holes that truther theories do:

"How can this be a four-month study when we only learned about COVID in January!" The HCQ protocol started being used almost immediately because of previous research on coronaviruses.

"How come all of the sudden this safe medicine that people use all the time is dangerous?!" The side effects of HCQ have been well known for years and have always required consideration and management. They may be showing up more strongly here because it is being given to patients whose bodies are already under extreme stress. Also, azithromycin may amplify some of those side effects.

"They just hate Trump." Not everything is about Donald Trump. If it turned out that kissing Donald Trump's giant orange backside cured COVID, scientists would be the first ones telling people to line up and use chapstick.

The other camp's response has ranged from undisguised glee -- that is, joy at the idea that we won't be saving lives cheaply -- to bizarre claims that Trump should be charged with crimes for touting this unproven therapy.

(A perfect illustration of the dementia: former FDA Head Scott Gottlieb -- who has been a Godsend for objective analysis during the pandemic -- tweeted out the results of the RECOVERY unblinding yesterday morning and noted that it showed no increased safety risk. He was immediately dogpiled by one side insisting he was trying to conceal the miracle cure of HCQ and the other insisting he is a Trumpist doing the Orange Man's dirty work.)

In the end, the lunatics do not matter. Whether HCQ works or not, whether it is used or not, will be mostly determined by doctors and will mostly be based on the evidence we have in front of us. If HCQ fails -- and it's not looking good -- my only response will be massive disappointment. Had HCQ worked, it would have been a gift from the heavens. It is a well-known, well-studied drug that can be manufactured cheaply in bulk. Had it worked, we could have saved thousands of lives, prevented hundreds of thousands of long-term injuries and saved trillions of dollars. That it doesn't appear to work -- certainly not miraculously -- is not entirely unexpected but is also a tragedy.

{C1} The Christian Science Monitor looks at 1918 and how sports handled that pandemic, and the role it played in giving rise to college football.

"That's really what started the big boom of college football in the 1920s," said Jeremy Swick, historian at the College Football Hall of Fame. "People were ready. They were back from war. They wanted to play football again. There weren't as many restrictions about going out. You could enroll back in school pretty easily. You see a great level of talent come back into the atmosphere. There's new money. It started to get to the roar of the Roaring '20s and that's when you see the stadiums arm race. Who can build the biggest and baddest stadium?"

{C2} During times of rapid change, social science is supposed to be able to help lead the way or at least decipher what is going on. Or maybe not...

But while Willer, Van Bavel, and their colleagues were putting together their paper, another team of researchers put together their own, entirely opposite, call to arms: a plea, in the face of an avalanche of behavioral science research on COVID-19, for psychology researchers to have some humility. This paper—currently published online in draft format and seeding avid debates on social media—argues that much of psychological research is nowhere near the point of being ready to help in a crisis. Instead, it sketches out an “evidence readiness” framework to help people determine when the field will be.

{C3} There is a related story about AI - which is predisposed towards tracking slow change over time - is having trouble keeping up.

{C4} The Covid-19 does not bode well for higher education is not news. They may have a lot of difficulty opening up (and maybe shouldn't). An added wrinkle is kids taking a gap year, which is potentially a problem because those most able to pay may be least likely to attend.

{C5} People who can see the faults with abstinence only education fail to see how that logic (We shouldn't give guidance to people doing things we would rather they not do in the first place). Emily Oster argues that the extreme message of public health advocates to Just Stay Home is counterproductive.

When people are advised that one very difficult behavior is safe, and (implicitly or not) that everything else is risky, they may crack under the pressure, or throw up their hands. That is, if people think all activities (other than staying home) are equally risky, they figure they might as well do those that are more fun. If taking a walk at a six-foot distance from a friend puts me at very high risk, why not just have that friend and a bunch of others over for a barbecue? It’s more fun. This is an exaggeration, of course, but different activities carry very different risks, and conscientious civic leaders should actively help people choose among them.

{C6} A look at what canceling the football season will do to the little guys - non-power schools. Ironically, they may sustain less damage due to fewer financial obligations relying on the money that won't be coming in. Be that as it may, Fordham has disestablished its baseball program.

{C7} Bans on evictions and rental spikes could have the main effect of simply pushing out small investors, rather than protecting renters. In a more good-faith economy this would be less of an issue because landlords would work with tenants. Which some are, though I don't have too much faith about it being widespread.

{C8} Three cheers for Nick Saban. Football coaches are cultural leaders of a sort. One is about to become a senator in Alabama, even. What they do matters.

The American college experience for better or for worse revolves around the residency factor. We have turned college into a relatively safe place for young adults to the test the limits of freedom without suffering too many consequences. Better to miss a day of classes because you drank too much than to miss a day of an apprenticeship or job and get fired. College was cut short this semester because of COVID and colleges are freaking out about whether they can open up dorms in the fall. The dorms are big money makers and it is hard to justify huge tuition bucks for zoom lectures even for elite universities. Maybe especially for them. California State University announced that Fall 2020 is going to be largely online. My undergrad alma mater sent out an e-mail blast announcing their plan to reopen in the fall with "mostly" in person classes. The President admitted that the plan was a work in progress but it strikes me as a combination of common sense and extreme wishful thinking. The plan may include:

1. Staggered drop-off days to limit density as we return.

This sounds reasonable but only in a temporary way because eventually everyone will be back on campus, living in dorm rooms together, needing to use communal bathrooms and showers.

2. Students would be tested for COVID-19 on campus at least twice in the first 14 days.

There is nothing wrong with this as long as the testing is available. Our capacity for testing so far in this country has not been great.

3. Anyone experiencing symptoms would be tested immediately. Students who test positive would be cared for in a separate dormitory area where food would be brought to the room and where the student could still access classes remotely.

Nothing wrong here. Outbreaks of certain diseases are not unknown in the college setting. During my senior year, there was an outbreak of a rather nasty strain of gastroenteritis. Other universities have experienced meningitis outbreaks.

4. All students would take their temperature and report symptoms daily.

This one is also reasonable but is going to involve spying on students and coming up with a punishment mechanism. How will they make sure students are not lying?

5. We would also require that socializing be kept to a minimum in the beginning, with proper PPE (masks) and social distancing. As time went on, we would seek to open up more, and students could socialize and eat together in small groups.

I have no idea how they tend for this to happen and it sets of all my lawyer bells for carefully crafted language that attempts to answer a concern or question but also admits "we got nothing." Maybe today's students are more somber and sincere but you are going to have around 500 eighteen year olds who are away from their parents for the first time and another 1500 nineteen to twenty-one year olds who had their semester rudely interrupted and might now be reunited with boyfriends and girlfriends. Are they going to assign eating times for the dining hall and put up solo eating cubicles that get wiped down and disinfected after each use? Assign times to use laundry facilities in each dorm? Cancel the clubs? Cancel performances by the theatre, dance, and music departments?

I am sympathetic to my alma I love it but and realize that a lot of colleges and universities would take a real hit financially without residency. This includes universities with reasonable to very large endowments. Only the ones with hedge fund size endowments would not suffer but the last part of the plain sounds not fully thought out yet even if my college's current President admitted: "Life on campus will not look the same as it did pre-pandemic" The only way i see number 5 working is if requiring is read as "requiring."

Seems that the theory that Covid-19 can be spread by asymptomatic people has very shaky evidence in support of it. Turns out the case this assumption was made from was based on a single woman who infected 4 others. Researchers talked to the 4 patients, and they all said the patient 0 did not appear ill, but they could not speak to patient 0 at the time.

So they finally got to talk to her, and she said she was feeling ill, but powered through with the aid of modern pharmaceuticals.

Ten Second News

Today we couldn’t be happier to announce that Vox Media and New York Media are merging to create the leading independent modern media company. Our combined business will be called Vox Media and will serve hundreds of millions of audience members wherever they prefer to enjoy our work.

In a nation in turmoil, it's nice to have even a small bit of good news:

Representative Steve King of Iowa, the nine-term Republican with a history of racist comments who only recently became a party pariah, lost his bid for renomination early Wednesday, one of the biggest defeats of the 2020 primary season in any state.

In a five-way primary, Mr. King was defeated by Randy Feenstra, a state senator, who had the backing of mainstream state and national Republicans who found Mr. King an embarrassment and, crucially, a threat to a safe Republican seat if he were on the ballot in November.

The defeat was most likely the final political blow to one of the nation’s most divisive elected officials, whose insults of undocumented immigrants foretold the messaging of President Trump, and whose flirtations with extremism led him far from rural Iowa, to meetings with anti-Muslim crusaders in Europe and an endorsement of a Toronto mayoral candidate with neo-Nazi ties.

King, you may remember, was stripped of his committee assignments last year when he defended white supremacism. Two years ago, he almost lost his Congressional seat in the general. That is, a seat that Republicans have held since 1986, usually win by double digits and a district Trump carried by a whopping 27 points almost came within a point or two of voting in a Democrat. That's how repulsive King had gotten.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. Enjoy retirement, Congressman. Oops. Sorry. In January, it will be former Congressman.

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From the Daily Mail: Deadliest city in America plans to disband its entire police force and fire 270 cops to deal with budget crunch

The deadliest city in America is disbanding its entire police force and firing 270 cops in an effort to deal with a massive budget crunch.

...

The police union says the force, which will not be unionized, is simply a union-busting move that is meant to get out of contracts with current employees. Any city officers that are hired to the county force will lose the benefits they had on the unionized force.

Oak Park police say they are investigating “suspicious circumstances” after two attorneys — including one who served as a hearing officer in several high-profile Chicago police misconduct cases — were found dead in their home in the western suburb Monday night.

Officers were called about 7:30 p.m. for a well-being check inside a home in the 500 block of Fair Oaks Avenue, near Chicago Avenue, and found the couple dead inside, Oak Park spokesman David Powers said in an emailed statement. Authorities later identified them as Thomas E. Johnson, 69, and Leslie Ann Jones, 67, husband and wife attorneys who worked in Chicago.

The preliminary report from an independent autopsy ordered by George Floyd's family says the 46 year old man's death was "caused by asphyxia due to neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain".

The independent examiners found that weight on the back, handcuffs and positioning were contributory factors because they impaired the ability of Floyd's diaphragm to function, according to the report.

Dr. Michael Baden and the University of Michigan Medical School's director of autopsy and forensic services, Dr. Allecia Wilson, handled the examination, according to family attorney Ben Crump.

Baden, who was New York's medical examiner in 1978 and 1979, had previously performed independent autopsies on Eric Garner, who was killed by a police officer in Staten Island, New York, in 2014 and Michael Brown, who was shot by officers in Ferguson, Missouri, that same year.

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Oddly, the video was dropped by an attorney friend the men, because he thought it would exonerate them. He assumed when people saw Aubrey turn and try to defend himself, everyone would see what they did: a dangerous animal needing to be put down.